Per Gessle

Top 2000: The Untold Stories – Roxette – It Must Have Been Love

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You surely remember the Dutch TV program, Top 2000 that interviewed Per Gessle on 19th November 2019 at Baggpipe Studios (the old EMI studio) in Stockholm. In December 2019 they broadcast the story of The Look and they shared it on their YouTube channel in February 2020. Later, in August 2020 they shared an acoustic version of It Must Have Been Love. Per played it the same day they recorded the program and now it turns out there was a story behind IMHBL they recorded as well. It was broadcast on Dutch TV yesterday. You can watch it HERE (if you are in the Netherlands or via VPN).

Per tells the whole idea with Roxette was that they wanted to go international. They had success in Sweden, Marie was a successful solo artist and Per was successful with his Swedih band. Marie’s career was climbing, but Per’s heydays were over. Marie and Per knew each other since the late 70’s and they always wanted to do something together. She had an amazing voice, Per could write songs for her and they shared the ambition. Per wrote different songs for Marie than what she could write herself. There is Soul Deep for instance. She is amazing in that song. She never really wrote material like that. After the success in Sweden with the first Roxette album they were a bit disappointed because they wanted to succeed abroad. So they talked to EMI in Germany and they said they should write a Christmas song, maybe then it’s easier for EMI Germany to get them on the radio. Per went home and wrote It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted).

Per is showing the demo to IMHBL where he is singing. He says it would have been Marie who would be whispering the line they hear (It’s a hard Christmas day, I dream away), to make it more intimate, but they gave it up, it was corny. Per explains this demo was before auto tuning, it’s really out of tune and he laughs. He says it’s a really bad demo actually. They recorded the song and released it in Sweden in 1987 and it became a hit. It was a big song for them, but Germany didn’t release it, EMI Electrola hated it.

Then they forgot about it. Per started writing the Look Sharp! album. They had all the success with it, with The Look and Listen To Your Heart. Then in 1989 they had a lunch with EMI in Los Angeles and they had the rights of a soundtrack to a movie called 3000. It was about a guy who hires a girl for the weekend for 3000 dollars. They said that they have David Bowie on board, Go West and Natalie Cole as well, all those EMI artists. They wanted Roxette to write a song for that movie, but Per said they had no time, they were travelling all around the planet to promote Look Sharp! But Mr. G said they have a Christmas song and he could very easily alter the lyrics to it. He got rid of Christmas day that became winter’s day. They sent it to them and they loved it. The title of the movie became Pretty Woman. Per remembers he was in this studio (the old EMI studio) when Garry Marshall, director of the movie called him to tell that he loves the song so much he had given it a great place in the movie and there is no dialogue over it, because it speaks for itself and it just gives the whole movie a certain character in that particualr scene. Per thanked and put down the phone. The movie became a blockbuster and they were surprised what happened there. IMHBL became this epic song it is today.

Thanx for the hint, Ludo van Denderen! (He also shared a screen recording of the program on his FB.)

Per Gessle at Late Night Concert

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Late Night Concert is a collaboration between Live Nation and TV4, which premiered this spring and was recorded at an empty Gröna Lund. The format was born out of the current situation when live music has fallen silent when concerts have been forced to scale down and is based on the idea of spreading live music out into the country and home to the TV couches.

The second season was recorded at Cirkus in Stockholm without an audience and is broadcast on TV4. The program can also be seen on TV4 Play and C More.

Per Gessle’s Late Night Concert day was 16th December. You can watch it HERE (if you live in the EU or can use VPN)! When we are on tour, we expect more and more people to attend the shows and now… we can be happy for concerts where there is literally no one in the audience. How weird this 2020 is. At the same time, we can be grateful that at least this way we can enjoy Mr. G’s performance. Who knows when it will be possible to go on tour again.

Per chose to perform an unplugged set and what a great decision it was! It’s not the first time he plays unplugged. We all remember MTV Unplugged from 1993. It happened at the same place, Cirkus in Stockholm and Mr. G was wearing a similar wild cat shirt. Now there were less instruments and no John Lennon sunglasses.

Helena Josefsson, Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist and Magnus Börjeson joined Per on stage. They played 9 songs (2 Roxette, 1 Gyllene Tider, 6 Per solo).

Setlist

  1. På promenad genom stan
  2. Småstadsprat
  3. Listen To Your Heart
  4. Tycker om när du tar på mej
  5. Ömhet
  6. I din hand
  7. Segla på ett moln
  8. Honung och guld
  9. It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted)

All songs sounded wonderful in this arrangement. I’m a fan of rock concerts and jumping in the crowd, but hey, I want this acoustic set in real life! Not the first time I’m dreaming about an acoustic tour, but now I crave it even more. I mean Per’s vocals were so emotional and Helena was singing beautifully and Clarence, Chris and Magnus were playing so softly, all that absolutely fit the intimate atmosphere. 3 songs put me into tears. Listen To Your Heart… before you tell her goodbye… Gosh… Then Segla på ett moln for whatever reason and then of course, It Must Have Been Love. Oh well, music and its effects. It was amazing to hear songs live from Per’s latest solo album, Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig.

Between Småstadsprat and Listen To Your Heart Per talked about his MTV Unplugged 1993 experience. He said he played Cirkus several times, but he remembers most of all the MTV recording. They were the first non-English or non-American band that was invited to play on the program. He remembers that he was wearing a leopard shirt back then and that’s why he is wearing a leopard shirt now, to celebrate it.

Before playing Ömhet, Mr. G talked about being isolated due to the pandemic and that he thought to record an album based on his old material written in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. His idea was to play all instruments himself to make it as personal as possible. He tried to breathe new life into those old songs. He thinks it became a pretty cool album.

Before It Must Have Been Love, Per talked about the story of it. He says it’s a super special song. It started out as a Christmas song in 1987 and it was a success in Sweden. The story behind is that their German record label advised them to write a Christmas song so they might get airplay on German radio, because they couldn’t manage it with their debut album, Pearls of Passion. So they recorded IMHBL, presented it to the German, but they didn’t like it. Then in 1990 they were asked to cooperate in the soundtrack of a movie then called 3000. They were travelling around the world with Roxette then and didn’t have time to record a new song. They thought to use IMHBL, just changing Christmas day to winter’s day in the lyrics, recorded a new intro and mixed it differently. The title of the movie was changed to Pretty Woman and became a huge success. IMHBL became Roxette’s probably biggest hit.

The concert was beautifully recorded from great camera angles. I could have lived without the ads in between the songs and it’s always better to see the support acts before the main act comes on stage, but other than that, concentrating solely on the PERformance itself, it was really a fab recording.

Dear Covid-19, don’t you dare ruin our 2021 as well! Besides many other things in a so called normal life, we need tours too!

Thanks a lot to Live Nation and TV4 for bringing Per Gessle into our living rooms and thanks Mr. G & Co. for the beautiful interpretation of these 9 songs. We want more of this! I just had to watch it again right after it ended. And I guess I will give it some more plays. Did I mention it was B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.???

Stills are from the program.

Per Gessle’s opinion about the recordings:

Had a blast recording the Unplugged Late Night Concert at Cirkus in Sthlm. My favourite players and singers around me. Wunderbar.
Missed you guys out there, of course, but that’s the way it is on Mother Earth right now. Hope you liked it too and didn’t find too slow or too cozy. I wanted it to be intimate since we couldn’t interact with any audience.
If you missed it I’m sure you can catch it on TV4 Play. Love to you all! Stay safe + sound! /P.
For those outside the EU, TV4 uploaded Listen To Your Heart to their YouTube.

Per Gessle interview on Radio ZET, Poland

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Magdalena Barczyk did an interview with Per Gessle for Radio ZET in Poland.

Magdalena’s first question is about Bag of Trix. Per tells her he started digging in the archives in spring and found a lot of materials, e.g. the Abbey Road sessions from 1995, as well as their first demos that served as the basis for their debut album in the 80’s, or leftovers from their Good Karma album. This compilation is kind of a mishmash of everything. He didn’t expect to find that much, so it was a bit overwhelming.

Magdalena is curious if there is still something unreleased left in the drawers. Per laughs and tells there is more. After completing this compilation, he came across even more recordings. It seems to be some kind of infinity. It’s been a really long career. He also found a lot of live tapes from the Joyride and Crash! Boom! Bang! tours. Maybe one day he will release them, we’ll see. He says they sound pretty good.

Magdalena tells Marie passed away a year ago and asks Per how this year was for Mr. G without Marie. Per tells it’s been a crazy year because of the pandemic. He thinks it’s been a special year for everyone in a way. Marie was ill for 17 years and everyone was slowly preparing for the worst, because she wasn’t in good shape. But when the time came, he felt like he couldn’t really prepare for it. He thinks everyone who lost a family member or a close friend understands it. He tries to think positively about what they went through together, their relationship lasted a very long time. She has always been and will always be one of Per’s closest friend. They met when they were teenagers and the adventure they experienced as Roxette is still amazing and difficult for some to understand. He feels lucky that he had a friend like that and a partner like that in his music.

Magdalena asks Per how he sees contemporary music and if anything surprises or annoys him in it. Mr. G tells he noticed that as you get older, you realize how much you are stuck with the music you grew up with. He started listening to pop and rock when he was 6 or 7 years old. So he can say that pop of the 60’s and 70’s is his DNA. Therefore, in his work he has always tried to come back to it. He just likes that style and he likes the way the songs were written. Looking back, pop is a reflection of the era in which it’s been made. In the 60’s it referred to societies, now we live in the times of social media, computers and laptops. You can hear it in music, it’s done on computers, it’s done differently. If you turn on 40 of the most popular radios, you will notice that all the songs are in a similar style. It’s hard to tell these songs apart. He doesn’t say pop music today is better or worse, it’s just different. It’s reflecting its own time.

Magdalena tells now there is a noticeable trend of musical return to the 80’s and is curious how Per likes it. Mr. G tells it puts a smile on his face. Those were his times and he immediately recognize the synthesizer or even the drum sounds. He can hear the sound that young people try to imitate and the way they arrange their songs. It’s cool, he likes it and thinks that The Weeknd captured it sensationally in the song Blinding Lights. He thinks it’s a nice trend.

Magdalena is curious which contemporary artist Per finds interesting and if he likes specific songs. Per says it’s a good question. He likes a lot of artists, but if he is listening to e.g. Billie Eilish for too long, it’s too much for him. The same applies to The Weeknd, even if they make very good pop. Per has always been a fan of creating concept albums where he would write 12, 14 or 16 songs. However, these days people only listen to one song. Album format is dead.

Magdalena mentions that Per is not only a musician, but also a businessman. Mr. G says he doesn’t consider himself a businessman. He has a hotel, which he bought 25 years ago. It’s in his hometown on the Swedish West coast. But he is not managing it, his wife is doing that. Per drives there and checks out everything from time to time. Sometimes he signs autographs and takes selfies there. Haha.

Magdalena asks Per how this strange year was for him personally. Mr. G says it’s been a crazy year. None of us have experienced anything like this before and he doesn’t even know what to say about it. He spent his time in isolation with his family in their house on the coast, although now he is back in Stockholm. He misses travelling the most, because he has always lived out of suitcase. He would like to meet his friends from all over the world in real life, not only via Zoom, Skype or FaceTime. He just misses the socialization that doesn’t exist today. Besides that, they can’t tour. Many of his fellow musicians and technicians barely make ends meet because they have no jobs. It’s a tough year for this business. He hopes next year will be better.

Magdalena tells the word „Poland” and asks for associations. Per says there has always been great concerts there. He always tells that he has travelled the whole world and saw nothing. This is how it is on the road. You come to a country or a particular city, you go to a hotel, then you have to do a soundcheck, you play a concert and you leave. But he knows that every concert in Poland is a great pleasure. They have a lot of fans there who are still supporting them and he appreciates it. If it weren’t for them, he probably wouldn’t be here talking today. It’s the fans who make the band big.

Magdalena asks what Per wishes for himself and Radio ZET listeners for the upcoming holidays. Per thinks the previous months were a nightmare for all of us. It’s depressing for everyone working in hospitals, for children not going to schools and for teachers working in difficult conditions. That’s why he thinks that during this holiday, the most important thing for everyone is that we return to a somewhat normal lifestyle.

Magdalena thanks Per for the interview and Mr. G thanks for it too.

The radio also recorded Per telling their slogan: ”Hi! This is Per Gessle from Roxette. You are listening to Radio ZET – Si?a muzyki.” (= The power of music). With Per Gessle’s Polish accent. Lovely, haha.

Thanks for the technical support, Tomasz Wysocki!

Per Gessle interview on Dzien Dobry TVN, Poland

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Dzien Dobry TVN, morning show on TV in Poland asked Per Gessle for a video interview that was broadcast this morning. You can watch it HERE! After an intro talk about Roxette’s success and Marie’s passing away, Gabi Drzewiecka interviewed Mr. G.

Gabi tells Bag of Trix is not only a huge thing for fans, but for all the people, because it contains much material that hasn’t been released before. She is curious how Per decided to release it. Per tells in spring he started going through the archives and he was surprised there was so much stuff they haven’t released yet. He found the Abbey Road Sessions from 1995, some songs that were released on CD singles back in the days and now that we are in a streaming world they are not there anymore. Some are very special, because those are from the times when they were very young and they took their first steps singing together and finding things out together with Marie. He thinks it’s just great to hear.

Gabi asks Per about Marie and says it hit the world that she passed away a year ago. She is curious how Per has been during this past year. Per tells they have known each other since they were in their teens in the 70’s, so it’s been a long journey. It’s hard of course, but he is reminded of Marie every day. She was ill for a long time so they knew the day would come, but you can’t prepare for that. He thinks most people who lost their family members or close friends know what he is talking about. She is very much missed, but he is very proud to have been working with her for so many years. And she is still among us with her music.

Gabi tells Roxette stayed in Stockholm, Sweden to record. She asks if they were stubborn to stay there. Per says Marie was the stubborn one. Their record label wanted them to move to Los Angeles or at least to London, but Marie sticked to staying in Stockholm where she had her friends and family. Per was thinking maybe they could go more into the centre of the music world, but in the end he thinks it was a wise move to stay in Sweden.

Gabi asks if staying in Stockholm maybe protected them from the craziness and madness that could have happened. Per thinks it could be. He still works together with the people who they started to work with in the 80’s, so he thinks this stability really protected them from the craziness in the music business.

Gabi is curious if Per knows how to rest. Per tells he is doing his best. Gabi tells there is Roxette, Per’s family, his hotel, so many to do, but she is curious where is the time for doing nothing. Per tells he is trying not to work all the time. When you have the work you love as an artist it’s a way of life. He doesn’t feel like he is working, but he is probably working all the time. He laughs.

Gabi thanks Per in Swedish for the conversation and Per wishes merry Xmas.

Stills are from the TV program.

Thanks for the technical support, Tomasz Wysocki!

Interview with Per Gessle by Wyborcza, Poland

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Jarek Szubrycht from Wyborcza in Poland did a great interview with Per Gessle on the occasion of the Bag of Trix release.

He starts with asking Per about touring with Marie during the past few years. Jarek thinks it was sad to see that Marie, who was bursting with energy in the past had to sit during the concerts. On the other hand, it was touching and uplifting as well, that she didn’t give up. Mr. G says the last tours were a really tough experience. Per asked Marie many times, “Do you really want this? Should we really go?” Her answer was always the same. When Marie told she would be sitting from now on because she had problems with her leg, it was hard to believe for Per. She always ran around the stage and standing still was something unnatural for her. She said she would be sitting because she wanted to sing for the people, she wanted to see them. Per is convinced that the energy she got from the people at concerts and the love they showed for her helped her survive. She was sick for a long time and Mr. G thinks that if they hadn’t gone on the last two tours, she would have left earlier. All the doctors advised her against touring, but she didn’t listen. And if she wanted to go on tour, so did Per. It was all he could do for her, to be with her to the end.

Jarek asks Per if we will ever see Roxette on stage again, maybe with a new singer, or maybe with Marie’s hologram. Mr. G can’t imagine replacing Marie with another singer and he won’t do that. On the other hand, he would feel bad about never performing Roxette songs again. He considers touring with several female singers and tries to find a solution that works both on an emotional and musical level.

Jarek is curious why Marie and Per joined their forces while they both had separate careers. Mr. G tells they have been friends for years and they shared a dream to break through outside Sweden. Per knew that he could write songs, but he is not an outstanding singer, neither the best guitarist in the world. He believed that with the right voice he could do a lot. Marie, on the other hand, felt great on stage and sang perfectly, but she couldn’t take care of the repertoire herself. She needed Per’s songs. In their case, 1+1 made 3 and they were much better together than they were apart. Roxette’s debut album was a huge success in Sweden, but only in Sweden, so Marie’s label urged her to stop working together with Per and focus on her solo career. Marie was persistent enough and fought with them for Roxette’s survival. After achieving international success, they were unstoppable.

According to Jarek, Roxette is a pop band on the radio, but a rock band on stage. Per says Roxette’s strength was great concerts. They put together a really good band and Marie was not only a great singer but also a stage personality. And they put the emphasis on the strong guitar sound on stage.

Regarding Bag of Trix Per tells it’s not a greatest hits compilation. They have already released many such compilations and you don’t need another one. He was browsing Roxette’s archives and to his great surprise, he discovered a lot of recordings that he had forgotten about. Among them there are demos they recorded in a cramped basement in the southern part of Stockholm, still not sure how to divide the roles, how to choose the key, but already very curious how they will make music together. They felt that something special was happening. Per says he also has some great live recordings from the Joyride tour in Australia and he will definitely not keep them to himself.

The biggest surprise for Mr. G on Bag of Trix was Soul Deep. It was to be the first single when Joyride was released in the US and producer Tom Lord-Alge pulled the song more towards soul. In the end, Soul Deep never became a single and even Per himself is not sure that he had heard this version before. He was happy to discover it now.

The warmest memories related to any tracks on Bag of Trix is the Abbey Road Sessions. PG says he couldn’t stop smiling when he listened to it. When they released Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus! in 1995, their label organized a promo concert for them in London. The day before, BBC invited them to the Abbey Road Studios to play some acoustic songs for them. They couldn’t refuse because they were huge fans of The Beatles. Marie said they should do something from The Beatles and since she always loved Help!, they did that cover and it worked out fine. Marie’s voice did all the work here.

Jarek asks if these memories are painful for Per. Mr. G says it’s not painful anymore, but when he was digging in the archives, it happened that he felt melancholy. He tries to remember only the good times and think about the magic that worked in Roxette. They managed to do something amazing, they were really lucky. Thanks to Marie – as a singer, but also an extraordinary personality – Per’s songs became better than they were. It’s not easy, because every day something reminds Mr. G of Marie and he knows it will be like that for the rest of his life, so he has to get used to it somehow.

While Jarek was listening to the demos of Roxette’s great hits, he wondered what distinguishes a good song from a great one that millions of people would later consider their own. Per tells that every time you try to do it the best you can. You follow the music, combine the melody and the words. He thinks there is also temperature and color of each song. He can’t predict which song will make the masses happy and which will get lost, but sometimes in the studio he hears that a new song has something special about it. This was the case with The Look, for example. When they recorded it, they were just one of the many Swedish bands that would like to play a little overseas. But in the studio, when they played The Look to people, they saw that they reacted differently than usual, that this was a song that had that notorious X factor. With Joyride and Milk and Toast and Honey he felt that too. Such songs write themselves, Per thinks. He knows immediately where he is going and how to get there. It’s a special feeling because usually he has no idea what he wants and the music guides him. Sometimes he gets stuck and he knows it’s sometimes better to leave it then and do something else.

Jarek asks Per if he thinks a career like Roxette’s would be possible to achieve today. Mr. G thinks it’s possible, but unlikely. The labels work completely differently, album format is history, radio has changed too much and social media has appeared. Per says pop music has always been a mirror of its era and it is also today. Most mainstream productions are made on laptops, using the same software, so they all sound great, but it’s difficult to tell them apart. Once upon a time, there was no doubt about who recorded which song, you could tell it by the sound. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Computers made everything similar. But the same thing happened with our lives, this is the modern world. On top of that there is an overproduction of music. 40,000 new songs premiere on Spotify every day, which means that new bands hardly have a chance to be noticed by anyone.

Jarek thinks that kids absorb and remember everything, but the older generation already have their idols and are not too open to new ones. Per tells his son is 23 years old and listens to music non-stop, and so do his friends. But they have no idea what the artists are called or what the titles are. Music just comes and goes. When Per was their age and he managed to get money for a new album, not only did he listen to it all the time, but he also studied every detail of the cover, learned the lyrics by heart, he even knew the serial numbers of the albums. He bought releases by specific labels because he knew he could trust them that he would like everything they released. This world is long gone. Mr. G is sorry for that, but his son is not sorry because he doesn’t know what he has lost.

Jarek is curious about when they felt that Roxette’s success exceeds their expectations. Per says they dreamed of touring Europe. To go to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium and play in a few clubs. They couldn’t imagine much else, even success in the UK didn’t seem possible to them. Meanwhile, the first country where they achieved success outside Sweden was the US. Nobody heard anything like that, nobody understood it. That’s why everyone in America decided they were single shots, that they made The Look, but that was it. Their second single in the US was Dressed For Success and the biggest radio network refused to play it. They decided that since they had already played one track of these Swedes, as a curiosity, they would not play a second one. That’s why Dressed For Success peaked only at No. 14 on the Billboard. Fortunately, the next single was Listen To Your Heart and then everyone gave up and was waiting for their next album with open arms.

Jarek mentions ABBA, Roxette, Europe, Max Martin, successful Swedes and is curious about how it’s done. What do Swedes know about popular music that Poles don’t? Per tells in the 80’s, when music became digital, everything changed. When he was recording his first album in 1979, all Swedish music sounded awful. His music too. Only ABBA was the exception, they always sounded fantastic. After the digital revolution, with the spread of synthesizers and music software, everything changed. Productions from Munich, Buenos Aires and Stockholm began to sound more or less the same as those from London. Swedes have always liked new technologies, so a whole generation of producers and songwriters who could use these tools quickly emerged. This, however, doesn’t explain the success of bands such as Roxette, Europe, The Cardigans or The Hives. So Per thinks maybe the point is that northern Europeans – not only Scandinavians, but also northern England or Scotland – have an innate talent for composing beautiful melodies.

Thanks a lot for the hint, Tomasz Wysocki!